360
by OUATLovr
Summary: After Philip has an accident during another one of his drunken outings, Elizabeth confronts him about the downward spiral their marriage has fallen into.


Elizabeth was woken by the sound of her husband's drunken footfalls as he thumped into her bedroom in the early morning, too early, and she might have gotten up and snapped at him if she were not simply...tired.

Tired of waking in the morning to the sight of her husband semi-apologetic face, tired of facing each day with the knowledge that she must be perfect while he could be whatever he wished, tired of fighting with him most of all.

They didn't share a bedroom anymore. Hadn't, in some time, though that had always been their habit, when they lived in their own home.

So she didn't know what to think, of the knowledge that, when her husband was drunk and had lost his veneer of resentment and bitterness, he went directly to her bedroom first.

She'd gotten the servants out of the habit of trying to keep him away if she was still asleep after the first week, when he'd exploaded on poor Jane for blocking him from seeing his wife, and in the process had awoken the entire palace.

It simply wasn't worth the embarrassment, or her mother's steadily disapproving looks. She would simply have to deal with it. Privately.

"Lilibet?" her husband called, in a drunken whisper, and Elizabeth sighed and didn't dare respond. Most of the time, he gave up if she was not awake, went off to wherever it was he went that he claimed was so innocent when it always brought him home falling down drunk.

She wasn't privileged to know that, though.

She did know that he'd gotten bored of flying, after achieving the license it had been so important he acquire. That Townsend no longer took him out on death defying trips, two men who both had nothing to lose anymore.

She almost missed the days when her husband was bitter and angry that he could not fly, rather than bitter and angry that he could do nothing else, and since she had clearly woken in a mood, she had no wish to look at that resentful face.

And as usual, after a few moments of errant waiting, her husband turned on his heel, groped his way out of the room to a waiting Mike, and the two shuffled off, their hopeless attempts at remaining quiet falling woefully short.

Elizabeth did not sit up until she heard the sound of an engine revving in the courtyard, and only then did she let her feet fall onto the cool marble as she slipped off the bed and reached for her robe, where it hung off the end of the bed.

She made it to the window just in time to see Philip and Mike revving away, the car that he'd been so proud of when he first bought it screeching as it tilted on two tires, Philip's drunken laugh filling the air a moment later.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. The car was around the corner now; she no longer felt the need to watch it, to make sure Philip was all right.

She knew he wasn't, and no amount of waiting at the window in the time that she could between meetings would change that. Neither of them had been quite all right in a long while.

* * *

She'd been in a closed door tutoring session with Professor Hogg when the knock came to the door.

She'd ordered that they not be disturbed unless it was something very important, or for the Prime Minister, who knew, she now thought, the importance to her of learning what every other shoolgirl had been given the chance to learn.

And besides, he had been spending quite a bit of time with his painter, after he'd recovered from his illness. Elizabeth was merely glad that he had found something less strenuous to occupy his time with.

Something that didn't involve bashing heads with her about what Philip was and was not allowed to do, as the husband of the queen.

Professor Hogg exchanged a glance with Elizabeth as another knock came to the door, as Elizabeth sighed and brushed down her skirts as she stood to her feet, hand still in the book of geography the Professor wished her to memorize.

"Yes, what is it?" she called impatiently.

There was a silence on the other end of the door, and for a moment Elizabeth found herself incredulous, wondered if this was some prank of Charles' or Anne's before she remembered they were still at Sandringham.

And then, the voice spoke up.

"It's the Duke, Your Majesty," the voice outside the door called, and Elizabeth froze with her fingers crinkling around the corner of a page. "There's been...an accident."

* * *

She'd known that something like this would happen. Known with every day of her pretended indifference, that one morning she would wake and Philip would not be there to drunkenly hound at the door in an attempt to gain her attention.

Had known, and been too tired to do anything about it.

"How is his condition?" she asked the doctor, eyes never leaving Philip's face.

He was so proud, which had been part of the problem for some time in their marriage. He would hate the scar above his eye when he woke.

He was not quite awake now, kept on whatever painkillers he had been given and, as Elizabeth had been told, not quite lucid. He hadn't even glanced up when Elizabeth entered the room, engaged in an intense staring match with his hands as the doctors worked on them.

He hadn't spoken, either, his eyes lulling every once in a while toward the clock on the wall before they attempted to close, and the doctor would gently shake him and tell him that he must stay awake.

"His condition is not so dire, Your Majesty," the doctor assured her. "His Highness suffered mostly superficial wounds."

"Besides the blow to the head," she said softly. And the cracked ribs, and the new break in his arm. All wounds that would heal, given time. All wounds that could have been far worse, she knew.

Of course, Mike had been in the car as well, but he was fine, save for a few scratches already dealt with by his own doctor, while her Philip was the one who'd been thrown from it and onto the pavement.

His condition could have been a lot worse, she knew, and that was the only thing keeping Elizabeth calm, in this moment.

The doctor tutted in agreement. "The concussion is the most serious. The others can be dealt with after he is more aware, but the most important thing at the moment is to keep him awake until the danger has passed."

Elizabeth nodded. "Do whatever you must," she agreed, waving his suddenly grating voice away.

Philip would probably laugh, if he was lucid enough to do so. Say that none of these wounds were anything serious, and Lilibet, couldn't anyone see that he'd be right as rain tomorrow?

But Philip wasn't lucid, and so the job was left up to her.

She'd been finding that to be the case more and more often, lately. First the Prime Minister, and now her husband. Both too proud to admit that something was terribly wrong, and so Elizabeth was left to clean up their messes.

"Your Highness," one of the doctors said suddenly, and Elizabeth snapped bacck to attention as she realized the man was addressing Philip, not her, "Your Highness, can you look at this light?"

Philip looked up blearily, squinting when the doctor shined a bright light into each of his eyes, and Elizabeth flinched in sympathy.

He looked into the light for a few moments, and the doctor turned it off in the next moment, scribbled something down onto the little pad in his hands.

"I think the concussion has worn off enough that His Highness can sleep," one of the doctors said then, and Philip sighed with clear relief at the same time Elizabeth did, glanced up and met her eyes.

Elizabeth was the first to look away.

"How are you feeling, otherwise, Your Highness?" one of the doctors asked, reaching out to assess the condition of his arm once more.

"I'm fine," Philip muttered, shrugging off the doctor's touch, and the man looked back at Elizabeth helplessly, as if he thought a word from her would quell her delirious husband.

Elizabeth sighed, stepped forward on nimble feet.

"Philip, please," she said quietly, staring at the headboard above him in lieu of his face. "The doctors are just doing their jobs."

Philip snorted. "I'd be surprised if they were," he said waspishly, "No doubt I have some incurable injury that they'll make no mention of for another few months, until it's quite too late."

The words were like a slap, and the doctor attending her husband fell abruptly silent, glancing at his queen for a moment with still hands.

Elizabeth sighed. That was still a sore spot for her as much as it was for anyone in their family, that the doctors had elected to keep her papa's condition from him and, when he had eventually learned the truth of it, from the rest of the royal family.

Philip had no right to bring it up like this, when she couldn't even reprimand him for doing so in front of so many people, and, from the look slowly crossing Philip's face after he said the words, he seemed to realize this as much as everyone else in the room.

He sighed. "I'm sorry," he said, though he wasn't looking at the doctors as he said the words, and Elizabeth sucked in a breath.

Couldn't remember the last time her husband had apologized to her and meant it.

A pause.

"His Highness can sleep now," the doctor told Philip, sounding almost as relieved as Elizabeth felt.

Elizabeth nodded, glanced at her husband once more and barely resisted the urge to sigh as he looked away from her, stared at the opposite wall as though it were the most interesting thing she had ever seen.

"I'll leave you to your rest, then," she said quietly, turning and striding from the room, and never knowing if his eyes followed her exit or not.

"Elizabeth," Philip said quietly, and she paused at the door, hand quivering where it clutched the handle.

She did not quite turn around.

"I'm sorry," her husband repeated, and Elizabeth sighed, wondered if she could dare to believe him. Wondered if she could not.

Wondered if, the moment he was well again, her stubborn husband would not be back to his old ways, driving his car drunkenly through the streets of London with his friends, promising that, whatever it was they did get up to, he wasn't doing anything terribly improper.

She opened the door, and walked out, let it swing shut silently behind her. Pretended she didn't hear her husband calling her name again, this time quieter and more panicked than the last.

* * *

She had called Porchey and told him that she was happy for his marriage, and that now she must attend to hers. That she was sure whatever choices he made for the horses for the next few weeks would be good ones.

And then she had hung up, before Porchey could do more than stammer a response, ask her how her husband was, having heard about his fall.

Elizabeth had not wanted to say more, had not wanted to be dragged into a conversation with that sweet man while her husband lay recovering in the other room, even if Elizabeth, at least, knew that such a conversation would be perfectly innocent.

She had a radioed speech to get ready for, after all, Elizabeth had convinced herself, when she had wondered why she hung up so quickly, attempting to rationalize doing so in her mind, the guilt creeping up inside of her despite everything.

It was not that she had feelings for Porchey, as her husband seemed to believe. She loved Porchey, in the same way she loved the horses they bred together and the same way she loved Margaret, even if her relationship with her sister had been particularly strained, of late.

And she loved that Porchey made her feel like the princess Philip used to make her believe she was.

Elizabeth smoothed down her gown as she looked at herself in the mirror before nodding to the maid that it was perfect for today, and sighed. She wondered if there was something about becoming a queen that caused a princess to lose all of their allure.

Philip had loved her before. Porchey had loved her before. And neither of them looked at her twice now.

Because she wore a face seen on a postage stamp? Because she had forced her husband to bow to her by right of birth?

She didn't know, but Elizabeth hated that thought. Hated it as much as she earlier had hated the thought of her husband being somehow unable to realize that his wife was a queen now, for all that he had professed to understand, before.

"Two minutes, ma'am," one of the servants warned her, and Elizabeth could almost hear Philip cursing for her.

She was expected to give a radio report of her husband's condition to the masses, who were very much shocked by their Duke's illness in a way that signified a love for him which Philip would have insisted did not exist, were he in fact conscious enough to do so.

 _They call me the Nazi, you know. They don't love me_ , he'd say.

 _Philip_ , she'd snap at him. _What a horrible thing to say. You are my husband, and they love you for that._

And he'd snort at those words, but he wouldn't argue, not further. Most likely because he knew she had grown tired of hearing in response, _They'd love me more if I was willing to put on an apron and cook our meals, too._

She wondered if all Austrians were really quite so open about their feelings, as Philip always implied, or if that was just Philip.

The speech wasn't directly about Philip, of course. It included half a dozen other scripted things, and she was supposed to mention him as a postcript.

As if Philip had ever been a postscript to anyone who knew him.

Elizabeth walked into the ready room, nodded to the Private Secretary that she was ready before she moved to take her seat, staring at the ominous microphone and swallowing hard as the cards on which were written what she was meant to say were placed before her.

She breezed through the rest of the speech, perhaps a little too quickly, if the looks of her attendants watching her were anything to go by, but Elizabeth could hardly focus on those words, too caught up in what she must say at the end.

Too caught up in her worry for her husband, nearly healed or not.

"My husband is expected to make a full recovery," she said into the microphone, glanced up to see the nods of her Private Secretary, of her mother, watching on because she'd never really been able to do so while Bertie made such announcements. "We thank you for all of your prayers."

Her throat closed at the end of those words, and Elizabeth found herself rather relieved that she had not had to say more, for she did not think she would have managed it.

She wondered if this was what her father had felt like, every time he was stood in front of a microphone.

And then, when it was over and the Private Secretary was telling her that Elizabeth had done well even when she knew she had not, Elizabeth barely heard what he had to say.

She had to get to Philip. The need rose up within her with a hurried sort of desperation, even if she knew he was fine, knew she would have been informed if anything else was the case, and she made her excuses, hurrying away before her mother could approach her.

She needed to see for herself. For some reason, right now, that was important, and Elizabeth made her way to Philip's sick room as quickly as she was able to, without starting to run in that direction for fear of what those watching might think.

She had just given a speech that he was on the mend, after all.

She made it to the private wing of the royal family before her feet started to move faster of their own accord, before she found herself pushing past the maids without an apology on her lips, and suddenly she was standing outside his door.

Elizabeth took a deep breath, pushed down her worries. He was fine, after all. The doctors had said so.

He would be fine.

She pushed open the door, and found her husband sound asleep in his bed, looking utterly peaceful for the first time that Elizabeth could remember since her return to Buckingham Palace.

Not dying, of course.

She swallowed hard, sank down into one of the two lone chairs set up in the corner of the room, where she had taken up residence while the doctors had stitched Philip's forehead up earlier.

Elizabeth watched her husband breathe in deep sleep, watched silently as his hands twitched in sleep, felt an overwhelming need to stand and walk over to his bed, to squeeze his hand gently and brush the hair from his forehead.

She didn't move.

She wished that he would wake so that she could see that peacefulness in his eyes for a few moments before they hardened.

A part of her hoped that he wouldn't wake soon, for she didn't know what she would say to him, didn't know if she was capable of offering the sort of comfort that a wounded man would need to hear, after everything.

Perhaps she should send for the children. Even if Philip seemed to be pushing them away with both hands now, as well, the Philip she remembered would never withhold a smile for them.

She didn't realize how long she had been sitting there until her mother entered the room, sank down into the chair beside Elizabeth's and handed her a steaming cup of tea.

Elizabeth took it with a nod of thanks, stared down into the swirling mass as the steam entered her nostrils and pretended that was the reason her eyes were watering.

It felt inordinately nice, in a way she suspected it should not, and Elizabeth found her world shrinking to only herself and that cup of tea as it flooded her senses.

She took a sip, grimaced. It had been papa's favorite, that kind, but she had always preferred something sweeter.

Philip would have known that, if he were awake. He probably would have teased her mercilessly about it, or at least tried to tease her mother.

"You must use this to bring that foolish man to his senses once and for all," her mother was whispering, when Elizabeth's senses returned to her, "That he has been given more freedom than any consort has ever been, and clearly it is doing nothing but harm for everyone."

Elizabeth closed her eyes. "Mother."

"It is not good for the populance to see their queen and her husband so openly at odds," her mother continued. "And his...disposition has hardly inspired the love of the masses, Elizabeth."

"Mother, please."

Her mother glanced at her intently, must have seen the circles beneath her eyes, the lines in her forehead. For a moment, Elizabeth wondered if this was the first time her mother had seen her as anything but a queen in some time, though she knew the other woman would deny it if asked.

"Lilibet," she said, reaching out and clasping Elizabeth's hands in her own, "Lilibet, are you and Philip...?"

It wasn't decent to ask such things, after all, not aloud.

 _How very English_ , she could hear Philip sneering in her head, and Elizabeth swallowed, looked away.

"I suspected..." her mother murmured, and Elizabeth scoffed.

"How could you not have?" she demanded, loose emotions fraying. "The whole palace must know of it, by now."

Her mother sighed, squeezed Elizabeth's hands once more before letting go. "Bertie and I were not without our troubles either, sweetling. You will get through this."

While this was the first time her mother had ever alluded to such things, and Elizabeth desperately wanted to ask, she didn't.

 _That's the problem with you English_ , Philip whispered, _You never ask. You just bury it and hope it doesn't come back._

She wondered if talking had done anything for the continuous argument she and Philip had been having since she was named queen.

She was far more concerned with the latter part of her mother's words, just now.

"Will we?" she asked, glancing blearily back at her husband, where he lay silently on the bed.

Her mother leaned forward, gaze suddenly more intense than Elizabeth had seen it since she had demanded her right to speak at the dedication of her father's statue.

"Yes," the queen mother insisted. "Whatever it is, Elizabeth, you will figure it out together, and move on from this. You always have."

Elizabeth glanced up. "We haven't since we were married," she cried out, despite herself, and her mother's expression softened.

"Do you remember when you convinced your papa that it had to be Philip, or no one?" she asked, and Elizabeth scoffed at the sudden change of topic. Her mother, however would not be deterred. "No one in England wanted you to marry that boy, but you were stubborn, and you persisted. Together."

Elizabeth stared down at her hands, clasped tightly in her mother's. "I know," she whispered.

"And you got through it, in the end," her mother continued heedlessly. "You got through it, Lilibet."

Elizabeth wanted desperately to reach into her pocket for a handkerchief, but her mother would not let go of her hands.

"Your husband may be a stubborn man, Lilibet," her mother said gently, "But you are every bit as stubborn as he, and I know already how hard you will fight for this marriage."

* * *

Elizabeth mulled over her mother's words for some time, understanding that the woman was right but not wanting to admit to it.

Not wanting to admit that there was something she could do fix their marriage in this moment, because Elizabeth knew what she would have to do from the moment this problem had started.

She simply did not want to do it.

When Philip finally woke, hours later, too long, she couldn't help but think critically, glancing out the window at the already setting sun, he blinked open bleary eyes, and then found hers immediately, so quickly that Elizabeth was a bit startled.

Unless he had been looking for them, and that dredged up thoughts Elizabeth certainly didn't want to think.

Elizabeth stood, walked over to stand by the bed, and then felt like a vulture standing over it and pulled back a bit, forced herself to smile, though the motion was tight around her cheeks, too tight.

"How are you feeling?" she asked gently, refraining from reaching out to brush at his forehead.

He twisted away from her nonexistant touch, nonetheless.

"I've been better," he said quietly, not meeting her eyes, though at least he was being honest, this time, and not hiding behind his facade of being perfectly fine, thank you very much.

Elizabeth couldn't remember the last time she'd shared a conversation with her husband, devoid of the biting vitirol that had begun to shape their arguments.

She sighed, and her husband glanced up at her with a look that was full of concern, for a few short moments, before he glanced away once more, staring down at his hands again.

Elizabeth followed his gaze, saw the small scars covering his fingers, and swallowed hard.

They would go away soon enough, she reminded herself. The doctors had told her as much.

She wondered if the doctors had said the same to Philip or not, before he had shoved them all away.

"With your recent accident, it has become abundantly clear to me that we must deal with this...problem between us," Elizabeth said, folding her hands in front of her and clasping them tightly in a way that Margaret had always claimed made her look like a prude. "As much as we can."

When they had first met, Philip had said she looked more like a princess than anyone else Philip had ever met.

"I don't see why. It's fine. It was just an accident," Philip snapped, and Elizabeth raised a brow incredulously. "I was dealing with it just fine, before."

"By acting like a child," she muttered, and her husband's lower lip protruded into the pout that had become all too familiar of late.

It reminded her all too much of Charles, at the beginning of one of his tantrums, and Elizabeth suppressed a smile, at the thought. Perhaps it really was time to send for the children, anyway.

Perhaps that was the only way to save their marriage, she thought with a worry of her upper lip.

"I was not-"

"You were acting like a child," Elizabeth repeated, annoyance causing her words to come out more clearly than usual. "Because you wanted my attention. And now you have it. So what do you want from me, Philip, now that you have my attention?"

He stared at her as if she had slapped him, and Elizabeth felt a moment's guilt before burying it deep. She would not feel guilty, not for this.

"I lost my Lilibet," he snapped, and Elizabeth's teeth clicked shut, surprise blooming across her cheeks.

"Philip-"

"I knew it, the moment I saw you put on that crown," he said quietly, not meeting her eyes anymore. "That you were going to become someone else, someone besides her."

Elizabeth closed her eyes. "I'm still her," she whispered, and Philip scoffed.

"You're not," he said, attempting to sit up and then falling back onto the bed with a groan. "Christ, I don't know who you are anymore, but you're not her."

"Just because I became a queen?" she asked, tempted to turn and walk out of the room right then. But she needed to see this through. Needed to give voice to it now, because she knew she would not soon be able to do so again.

He looked up, met her gaze steadily. "Yes."

Elizabeth sucked in a breath. "Philip-"

"I lost her to pageantry and polite smiles that dimmed into cool looks and indifference. I lost her to millions of English gentlemen, to the damn Prime Minister," he said, nodding, index finger rubbing idly against the bedpost. "Do you deny that?"

Elizabeth wanted dearly to tell him to stop fidgeting.

"And when she looked back at me, she was nothing more than the miming face of a goddamn postage stamp, twitching away because she couldn't bear to let down her people."

Elizabeth flinched.

"I thought we promised never to become those people," Philip continued. "The monkeys paraded before the world, hating it and each other and never saying a damn thing about it."

"Then why didn't you look for her?" Elizabeth demanded suddenly, her patience lost as she spun to her feet, rounding on him.

Her husband blinked, stared at her as if he didn't recognize her at all, and for a moment, Elizabeth wondered if he ever had.

"Why did you not try to bring her back, instead of turning your back on her? She needed you every bit as much as you've been attempting to convince half of London that you need me!"

Silence fell. His fingers twitched where they curled around the blanket covering him.

"Lilibet..."

She shook her head. "Elizabeth, I thought."

Her husband's teeth clicked shut, and he glanced away again, though she saw the hardness entering his eyes again before he did.

She would not abide that, not now. She would not suffer this conversation only to go back to the stony silences and passive anger that had been their marriage from the moment they had both realized that everything was about to change.

She could not abide that.

"Look at me," she snapped, and Philip lifted his head with obvious reluctance, glanced up at her and froze.

Froze as he watched a single tear slip from Elizabeth's shining eyes and down her cheek, his little wife usually so perfectly composed no matter the situation.

"Lilibet..." he whispered again, and Elizabeth reached into the pocket of her gown, pulled out her handkerchief to dab at her eyes.

And then her husband was pulling her down onto his bed, strong arm wrapped around her shoulders as he pulled her against him, and Elizabeth went, let herself bend into the familiar crook of his arm as she laid her hand on his chest, felt his chin rest against her forehead.

The sobs didn't come, not as Philip seemed to be expecting, just silent tears that stained his sleeping robes as Elizabeth held onto her husband and vowed never to let go again.

The old grandfather clock against the wall ticked endlessly as they lay together on that small bed, and Elizabeth let herself be guided by the sound, by the gentle ticks and the feel of Philip's hand in her hair.

"We've made a right mess of things, haven't we?" her husband whispered, hand petting gently, soothingly, through Elizabeth's hair.

She swallowed back a laugh that might have become a sob, if given the light of day. "I'd say so."

His hand abruptly stilled.

"Do you think we might find a way back?" he asked, and she heard a vulnerability in that voice she'd not heard since before they were married, when he had just signed away his name and attempted to instill himself with the indifference she could easily see past.

He'd been doing that ever since, she realized dully. Pretending indifference, a defense against losing face, losing all pride.

She could have married a man like Porchey, a man for whom pride would never have managed to impede upon their relationship. But she hadn't. She'd married a man full of it, because she loved his pride as much as she loved his laughter and his friendship.

It had been stupid, of course, but then, she'd been stupid too, pushing him away with her distance when all she wanted was to be with him again, to be his wife again.

They were never going to get that back. Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, equals and happy. She was always going to be a queen, he always standing one step behind her.

But that didn't mean they couldn't still be husband and wife.

"Yes," she whispered, and Philip looked at her again, mouth open like he was planning to protest as he protested so many of the things that came out of her mouth lately, and then his mouth clicked shut again, at whatever he saw on her face.

Instead, he bent forward, kissing her. It was a chaste, gentle kiss, the likes of which she had not gotten from him since the beginning of their courtship, when she was very young and too shy to let him do anything more.

She loved those kisses. Loved them more than the more open displays of affection he so often tried to give her, whether in private or before one hundred people.

These ones were honest, and just between them.

Elizabeth kissed him back, felt his hand lowering down her back as he pulled her closer, until she was pressed fully against him, the two of them fitting together as well as they ever had.

"My Lilibet," her husband whispered, his lips moving to her neck, and Elizabeth let him, pretended that this made up for the awkward cold war they had been engaged in for what felt like an eternity, now.

"I am her," Elizabeth whispered, kissing her way down his skin. "I will always be her. I never stopped being your Lilibet."

He threw his head back, and she watched as his Adam's apple bobbed with a harsh swallow.

"I know," he whispered finally, and Elizabeth sucked in a breath at the words she'd needed to hear for so long, now. "I know."

Elizabeth nodded, pleased, started to pull away. Even if this was all that they achieved in this moment, she supposed it would be enough.

"My Lilibet," Philip whispered, kissing her again, reaching out to pull her back down onto the bed, closer, until they were pressed up against one another and nothing else in the world mattered, in that moment.

"Don't go," he whispered. "Not yet."

And, breathless as her husband kissed her again, Elizabeth nodded.

"Not yet," she agreed, and she heard him moan softly at the words, felt him kiss her again, the action absurdly gentle.

Perhaps they could make this work. Nothing had changed since she had first met Philip, after all, and she was willing to fight for their marriage as long as he was.


End file.
